4 ms·

This is a huge deal. If your company has an acceptable use policy then you could be convicted of a felony for something as benign as checking Facebook or Twitte

This is a huge deal. If your company has an acceptable use policy then you could be convicted of a felony for something as benign as checking Facebook or Twittering. That is insane. You might say "my company has no official policy, so it can't happen to me." Wrong. Accroding to this ruling, you are a felon for doing anything on any computer, unless you were expressly authorized to perform that action on that computer. From the article: 'He added that the city had never actually disseminated a policy regarding internet usage to tell workers what was inappropriate. '"They had crafted one but they hadn’t published it," he said. "So there was in effect no policy and no protections on the computer--no password protection or filtering of any kind--so basically anybody could access anything on the internet through the city’s computer."'

knieveltech 17y ago
We can only hope some sanity will be injected into this process as the case proceeds through the higher courts.
- biohacker42 17y ago
  And given how knowledgeable the courts are on technology issues, hope and prayer is all we have.
  - ubernostrum 17y ago
    Actually, this isn't about technology at all. Our higher courts have long been skeptical of the idea of Congress being able to delegate portions of its lawmaking power to other entities, and there's a decent body of case law around it. So that's how I'd expect a half-decent Constitutional lawyer to attack this.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- gustavo_duarte 17y ago
  I'm not sure. In this case the law itself is insane, so the remedy may have to be legislative rather than judicial.
  - hvs 17y ago
    That depends on whether the law is constitutional or not. If not, then it could be overturned judicially or more likely returned to the legislature for revision.
  - anigbrowl 17y ago
    And uploading 700 kinky pictures of yourself from work is sane?
    - gustavo_duarte 17y ago
      It's not, and nobody has claimed it is, but I don't expect every city employee to behave sanely. I do have an expectation of sanity from the law however, which is broken when porn surfing becomes a felony under a law aimed at computer breakins.
      - anigbrowl 17y ago
        But if you read the text of the law in question, it covers a variety of offences including computer breakins. Your perception is that hacking is the focus of the law and it's been misinterpreted to include this other activity, but in fact hacking is only one of several things covered by it. It's Ohio revised code 2913.04.b: 'Unauthorized use of property - computer, cable, or telecommunication property' and is available here: http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2913.04 http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2913.04 Am I the only person here who took the trouble go and read it?
jmatt 17y ago
If your company has an acceptable use policy then you could be convicted of a felony for something as benign as checking Facebook or Twittering. I'm technically breaking our never-enforced acceptable use policy right now by posting on News.YC. I wonder if it only takes an over-zealous DA or if the company has to be complicit. Ok I'm aware I'm not using complicit appropriately - it's intentional. This is crazy. This guy had some REALLY bad judgment, but this amounts to the government being thought police.
dreish 17y ago
Realistically, as mynameishere points out below, they were able to get a jury to convict him because he was doing some genuinely nasty things -- things no half-sane person would do at work, including soliciting prostitutes. It looks like a terrible injustice when you carry it to the logical conclusion, but realistically you would not be able to get a jury to convict someone for twittering at work, nor would a prosecutor ruin his career by pursuing a case like that. This is just another example of, "Okay, we found a bad guy, now what laws can we use to nail him?" I don't think it's especially uncommon, and it is one reason juries are so important: they're the first line of defense against the unreasonable application of unreasonable laws.
- wheels 17y ago
  The problem is that for the set of "generally nasty things" which are not "illegal things" one shouldn't get a felony on their record. Fired, sure. Bitched out? You betcha. But not a felony. Because, see, letting people decide that things they think are nasty should be felonies and convicting people based on laws they've fished out to abuse for those purposes is ungood. You don't want that in a free society. On the other hand, you don't want people violently breaking the social norms in a structured environment like a work place. That's why there's a whole range of appropriate remedies that do not involve the courts.
  - dreish 17y ago
    That's a good discussion to have, and I tend to agree with you, but my point remains: nobody is going to get locked up for checking the weather at work. There's nothing to justify the Redditesque hysteria being eagerly upvoted on this page.
    - wheels 17y ago
      I think this resonates with some because the line is unclear. I've had boobs show up on my work machine before when I followed innocent seeming links. Heck, last week one of my new twitter followers was porn spam that had a full frontal nude as a profile pic. Where I live prostitution is legal (though I personally find it rather icky). I don't know what my response would be to co-workers looking up info on a brothel at work, but it wouldn't be to call the police. When I worked at SAP of all places, on their list of entertainment venues in the area of the headquarters, one of the links on the intranet wiki was to a gay club that has dark rooms. If an SAP employee in the contested jurisdiction clicked on that link, would they be a felon? This guy was clearly over the line, but I'd find it hard to say exactly where it is. If what he did made him a felon, I'd be hard pressed to say where the line is between him and the cases above. Since only one of the "nasty" activities that he committed was illegal (and that not even universally in the US) it is chilling that the legal system was rigged to find a way to convict him on a serious count that was put in place for entirely different reasons.
anigbrowl 17y ago
Don't agree. The law is interpreted, not compiled; this is one possible interpretation of what I admit is a farily broad statute. But let's be realistic here, if you twitter your other half with 'working late, will eat from freezer xxx snookums' no jury is going to hold that against you. Uploading >700 porn pictures at work, even of your own sexy self, is asking for trouble. You're laying your employer open to all kinds of liability, to say nothing of it not being anything like what they pay you for unless you're in the porn business. The guy is irresponsible, lacks common sense, and is trying to wriggle off the hook on a technicality. Let's not make a hero out of him, and let's not extrapolate the worst possible future from a single case, because the likelihood of anyone going to jail for checking the sports results or reading Google news on the office computer during lunch hour is vanishingly low. It's this kind of stupid 'but nobody told me I shouldn't' bullshit that leads to the imposition of idiotic HR policies in the first place.

knieveltech 17y ago

We can only hope some sanity will be injected into this process as the case proceeds through the higher courts.

biohacker42 17y ago
And given how knowledgeable the courts are on technology issues, hope and prayer is all we have.
- ubernostrum 17y ago
  Actually, this isn't about technology at all. Our higher courts have long been skeptical of the idea of Congress being able to delegate portions of its lawmaking power to other entities, and there's a decent body of case law around it. So that's how I'd expect a half-decent Constitutional lawyer to attack this.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
gustavo_duarte 17y ago
I'm not sure. In this case the law itself is insane, so the remedy may have to be legislative rather than judicial.
- hvs 17y ago
  That depends on whether the law is constitutional or not. If not, then it could be overturned judicially or more likely returned to the legislature for revision.
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  And uploading 700 kinky pictures of yourself from work is sane?
  - gustavo_duarte 17y ago
    It's not, and nobody has claimed it is, but I don't expect every city employee to behave sanely. I do have an expectation of sanity from the law however, which is broken when porn surfing becomes a felony under a law aimed at computer breakins.
    - anigbrowl 17y ago
      But if you read the text of the law in question, it covers a variety of offences including computer breakins. Your perception is that hacking is the focus of the law and it's been misinterpreted to include this other activity, but in fact hacking is only one of several things covered by it. It's Ohio revised code 2913.04.b: 'Unauthorized use of property - computer, cable, or telecommunication property' and is available here: http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2913.04 http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2913.04 Am I the only person here who took the trouble go and read it?

jmatt 17y ago

If your company has an acceptable use policy then you could be convicted of a felony for something as benign as checking Facebook or Twittering. I'm technically breaking our never-enforced acceptable use policy right now by posting on News.YC. I wonder if it only takes an over-zealous DA or if the company has to be complicit. Ok I'm aware I'm not using complicit appropriately - it's intentional. This is crazy. This guy had some REALLY bad judgment, but this amounts to the government being thought police.

dreish 17y ago

Realistically, as mynameishere points out below, they were able to get a jury to convict him because he was doing some genuinely nasty things -- things no half-sane person would do at work, including soliciting prostitutes. It looks like a terrible injustice when you carry it to the logical conclusion, but realistically you would not be able to get a jury to convict someone for twittering at work, nor would a prosecutor ruin his career by pursuing a case like that. This is just another example of, "Okay, we found a bad guy, now what laws can we use to nail him?" I don't think it's especially uncommon, and it is one reason juries are so important: they're the first line of defense against the unreasonable application of unreasonable laws.

wheels 17y ago
The problem is that for the set of "generally nasty things" which are not "illegal things" one shouldn't get a felony on their record. Fired, sure. Bitched out? You betcha. But not a felony. Because, see, letting people decide that things they think are nasty should be felonies and convicting people based on laws they've fished out to abuse for those purposes is ungood. You don't want that in a free society. On the other hand, you don't want people violently breaking the social norms in a structured environment like a work place. That's why there's a whole range of appropriate remedies that do not involve the courts.
- dreish 17y ago
  That's a good discussion to have, and I tend to agree with you, but my point remains: nobody is going to get locked up for checking the weather at work. There's nothing to justify the Redditesque hysteria being eagerly upvoted on this page.
  - wheels 17y ago
    I think this resonates with some because the line is unclear. I've had boobs show up on my work machine before when I followed innocent seeming links. Heck, last week one of my new twitter followers was porn spam that had a full frontal nude as a profile pic. Where I live prostitution is legal (though I personally find it rather icky). I don't know what my response would be to co-workers looking up info on a brothel at work, but it wouldn't be to call the police. When I worked at SAP of all places, on their list of entertainment venues in the area of the headquarters, one of the links on the intranet wiki was to a gay club that has dark rooms. If an SAP employee in the contested jurisdiction clicked on that link, would they be a felon? This guy was clearly over the line, but I'd find it hard to say exactly where it is. If what he did made him a felon, I'd be hard pressed to say where the line is between him and the cases above. Since only one of the "nasty" activities that he committed was illegal (and that not even universally in the US) it is chilling that the legal system was rigged to find a way to convict him on a serious count that was put in place for entirely different reasons.

anigbrowl 17y ago

Don't agree. The law is interpreted, not compiled; this is one possible interpretation of what I admit is a farily broad statute. But let's be realistic here, if you twitter your other half with 'working late, will eat from freezer xxx snookums' no jury is going to hold that against you. Uploading >700 porn pictures at work, even of your own sexy self, is asking for trouble. You're laying your employer open to all kinds of liability, to say nothing of it not being anything like what they pay you for unless you're in the porn business. The guy is irresponsible, lacks common sense, and is trying to wriggle off the hook on a technicality. Let's not make a hero out of him, and let's not extrapolate the worst possible future from a single case, because the likelihood of anyone going to jail for checking the sports results or reading Google news on the office computer during lunch hour is vanishingly low. It's this kind of stupid 'but nobody told me I shouldn't' bullshit that leads to the imposition of idiotic HR policies in the first place.